B E A 



85 



B E A 



substitute for glass, by extending them over their windows. 

 Even the shoulder-blades are said to ha v e been put in 

 requisition for cutting grass. 



The Laplanders held it in great veneration, and, accord- 

 ing to Leems, called it the Dog of God, for it appears, that, 

 among the Norwegians, there had long been a proverb, that 

 it had the strength of ten men, and the sense of twelve. 

 They never, says the same author, presume to call it by its 

 proper name of Guouzhja, lest it should revenge the insult 

 on their flocks, but make mention of it as Moedda-aigja, 

 or the old man with a fur-cloak (senem cum mastruca). 



The brown bear is a solitary animal. Its retreat, during 

 the period of hybernation, is the natural hollow of a tree, 

 or some cavern ; and if these are not to be found, the 

 animal constructs a habitation for itself, sometimes by 

 diguing, sometimes by forming a rude kind of hut or den 

 witu branches of trees, lined with moss. Here it retires 

 when fut with the summer's food, and remains dormant, 

 without taking any sustenance, till the ensuing spring*. 

 Cuvier makes the period of gestation about seven months, 

 stating that they couple in June, and that the birth takes 

 place in January ; and the same number of months is as- 

 signed in the article in the old French Encyclopudie, taken 

 from observations of the bears kept at Berne. The cubs, 

 when first born, are not much larger than puppies. They 

 are long lived, for it appears that one of the Berne bears 

 Dad been confined there one-and-thirty years; and another, 

 born there, is spoken of at the age of forty-seven in the 

 menagerie at Paris. They are excellent swimmers, not- 

 withstanding their uncouth appearance. Mr. Lloyd, in his 

 Field Sports of the North of Europe, gives a very inte- 

 resting account of the habits of this species, and of his ad- 

 ventures in hunting it. 



That the brown boar was at one time common in the 

 British islands there can be no doubt. The Caledonian 

 bears (another name for British with the Romans) were 

 imported to make sport for the Roman people, to whom 

 the excitement of witnessing the suffering of man and 

 b'-ii-t, in iis most distressing shape, seems to have been but 

 too welcome. From the well-known lines of Martial, de- 

 scriptive of the dreadful punishment of the malefactor 

 Laureolus, it appears that they were sometimes used as 

 instruments of torture. 



Nuda Caledonio tic pcctora preebuit urso 

 Noil falsA pendent in cruet: Laureolus t> 



Ray quotes authority for the brown bear having been one 

 of the Welsh beasts of chase, and Pennant adduces the 

 jilaces which retained the name of Pennarth, or the Bear s 

 Head, as evidence that it existed in that principality. In 

 the History of the Gordons it is stated that one of that 

 family, so late as the year 1057, was directed by the king to 

 carry three bears' heads on his banner, as a reward for his 

 valour in slaying a fierce bear in Scotland. 



For many years it has been swept away from our islands 

 so completely that we find it imported for ba ting, a sport 

 in which our nobility, as well as the commonalty, of the olden 

 time nay, even royalty itself, delighted. A bear-bait was 

 one of the recreations offered to Elizabeth at Kenihvorth, 

 and in the Earl of Northumberland's Household Book we 

 read of 20s. for his bear-ward : ' Item. My Lorde usith and 

 araistomyth to gyfe yerly when his Lordshipe is at home 

 to hU bar-ward, when he comyth to my Lorde in Cristmas 

 with his Lordshippe's beests, for makynge of his Lordschip 

 pastime, the said xij days, xx*.' In Southwark there was 

 a regular bear-garden, that disputed popularity with the 

 Globe and the Swan Theatres on the same side of the 

 water. Now however, so much do tastes alter (in this in- 

 stance certainly for the better), such barbarous sports are 

 banished from the metropolis J. 



The firm support afforded by the well-developed sole of 

 the foot enables the bears to rear themselves with compara- 



' * While upon the "subject of hybernation, we must not omit to notice the 

 plug (in Norway termed the Tappen). found in the rectum of fat hybernat- 

 jns IMMH. It appear* that if the bear lose* this prematurely, it becomes 

 , nnd that in the ordinary course of things, the tappen is not voided 

 till the hybernutiou i* over. 



Dr. Miiekland possesses one of th"fte em-eloped in the rectum, which was 

 presented to him by Mr. I.loyd, wliose work is hereafter alluded to, from a 

 bear nf Mr. Lloyd's own shooting. 



t We are ij'iiti- .in-;tre thut some commentators are of opinion ttiat Martial 



i* here *p*Mkir)L of a mimic scene, and that the verses which follow those 



i genuine; but the expression non falsii cruce' is pretty 



i 1 tlu> rest of the verses are allowed to be Martial's, there is no 



I'.-!" that he here describes a real spectacle. Whichever he the truth, the 



horrible use to which these bears were occasionally put in the arrua U but too 



e\iilent. 



See Slat. 3 W, IV. cap. 19, .ec. 23. 



live facility on their hind feet ; and this has been taken 

 advantage of to teach the animal to dance in an erect pos- 

 ture. The discipline put in force to produce this accom- 

 plishment is said to be so severe that it is never forgotten. 

 There is a well-known story, introduced with the happiest 

 effect in The Bride of Lammermoor, of a terrified gentleman 

 who was pursued by a bear. The bear gained on him 

 was close upon him with the resolution of despair he turned 

 upon his pursuer with his uplifted cane, when the enraged 

 animal reared itself up, the posture of attack, and instantly 

 began to shuffle a saraband. 



Baron Cuvier, in his ' Ossemens Fossiles,' distinguished 

 the black bear of Europe under the title of Ursus niger 

 Eurfyfa;us, observing that the frontal bone was flattened, 

 and that the well-marked depressions and ridges of the 

 skull, for the reception of the strong muscles of the lower 

 jaw, were evidence of its being more decidedly carnivorous 

 than the brown bear : but, in the last edition of his Regne 

 Animal, he confesses his doubts about the data on which he 

 had come to this conclusion ; and it is probably a variety 

 only. The usual size of the brown bear is about four feet 

 in length, by about two feet and a half in height. The 

 claws are two inches long, very much curved and nearly 

 equal. The gambols of the individuals kept in the Garden 

 of the Zoological Society in the Regent's Park are too well 

 known to need description. 



[Ursus Arctos.] 



Pyrenean Bear, Ursus Pyrena'iciu. F. Cuvier has 

 figured the bear of the Pyrenees and of the Asturias, whose 

 fur, in its youth, is of a yellowish white colour. The hair of 

 the feet is an intense black. This, it is considered, is only 

 a variety, though perhaps a distinct one, of Ursus Arctos. 



AMERICAN BEARS. 



American Black Bear, Ursun Americanus. Pallas first 

 described this species (the Sass of the Chippewayan Indians, 



[Ursiu Amciicanui.1 



